Breaking Murphy's Law?

October 15, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - If you feel
that you are constantly thwarted by "Murphy's Law," take
heart. Researchers have figured out a formula to predict the
impact of the law - before it takes hold.

The so-called Murphy’s Law holds that if something can
go wrong, it will go wrong, and generally at the most
critical time.
Now, a panel of experts has provided the statistical rule
for predicting the law of “anything that can go wrong, will
go wrong” – and it is ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x
1/(1-sin(F/10)).

After tests of the experiences of 1000 people, experts
commissioned by British Gas have discovered “things don’t
just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moment.”
The experts –
psychologist, a mathematician, and an economist – say the
formula allows people to calculate the chances of Murphy’s
(or as it is sometimes called, Sod’s) Law striking, and
even try to beat bad luck.

According to The Courier-Mail, project psychologist Dr.
David Lewis said: “The lesson from this is that, to cut the
seemingly unbeatable Murphy’s Law gremlins down to size,
you need to change one of the elements in the equation.

“So, if you haven’t got the skill to do something
important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or
complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going
wrong will particularly aggravate you, make certain you
know how to do it.”

In the calculation, five factors have to be assessed:
urgency (U), complexity (C), importance (I), skill (S), and
frequency (F), and each given a score between one and nine.
A sixth, aggravation (A), was set at 0.7 by the experts
after their poll.

Top of the most likely – and most annoying – events
was spilling something down yourself before a date and
the hot water heater breaking down in cold weather,
followed by rush hour being worse when you’re already
late.